Heh, this is where I go in-depth about those things I kept vaguely hinting at in my last post. 🙂
So BEFORE we left our debrief Belgrade, Serbia, on the last night there, we were all of us in our squad challenged by our worship team to choose something for this month that we were going to individually work on becoming more intentional about working on or doing.
I gave it some brief thought, and without too much hesitation I answered within myself, “Okay God, this month I really want to become more intentional on becoming better disciplined.”
Full disclosure, these first few months haven’t left us too far from the normal comforts of home. There’s a gas station and convenience store within walking distance, the technology is up to par with that of what you would expect to find in the US, the climate is comfortable and in fact is almost a dead ringer for what the weather is like right now back in PA (not related- I’ve had a SERIOUS itch to go hunting this last week for that very reason)! With all that in mind, it’s been rather easy to adapt to The Race so far and that’s a good thing (I’m not sure how well being thrown into Malaysia or South Africa for month 1 would have gone), but it’s also created room for old, unhealthy habits to continue on.
I’ll be the first to admit that my diet is not the healthiest. I like a Dr. Pepper or Coke and enjoy having a bag of chips or cookies (or both) to snack on and if there’s some leftovers nearby that no one wants to eat, odds are I’ll call dibs! I haven’t done any regular exercise consistently for about 4-5 years now. I’ve also let myself slip into a rather carefree lifestyle with rather loose limitations (in terms of daily schedule, not morally, worry you not). Most importantly though, I haven’t been diligent in setting aside time to seek God each day, though I will say that that particular area has been getting a LOT better since I’ve been on The Race, but it’s still been inconsistent. Some days I get into the word and book I’m reading while other days I’m in the word and prayer, and at other times I’m reading the book and journaling about it while other days still I’m some combination of any or all of those and anything in between!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be hard on myself, and in the end it’s still time spent with God, but it lacks consistency.
Imagine, if you will, having a relationship with your husband or wife and only talking to him or her here and there every few days, or perhaps only once in a week. Imagine buying them flowers, but not saying anything to them the whole time, or cooking them supper and having a romantic candlelit dinner but then excusing oneself abruptly up from the table with not a word said. How would you feel getting a card from a significant other, but upon opening it found there was nothing written inside?
See what I mean yet? Random, halfhearted, with hardly more than an ounce of effort towards making the relationship a healthy, functional one.
I had a friend who said something to me recently that pertains to this subject. She had the revelation in her time with God one morning about her own time spent with Him. In it, God said to her (we’ll call her Susan), “Susan, do you go the whole day on one meal? How then can you go through one day only taking in Me, your Daily Bread, once throughout the day?” Think about it. I mean, we all have the discipline to have at the very least two meals a day with very little exception (though eating is a little less negotiable to begin with). But at the same time, shouldn’t God be a non-negotiable in our daily life?
THAT! THAT is what we need to realize that God is to and for us!
We call Him our Daily Bread, but do we really treat or view Him as such? And that’s the question I had to ask myself. That’s what I wanted to work on this month. And it was/is my impression that the physical disciplines would be made easier if I could achieve that spiritual discipline.
So that’s what I said I wanted to work on to God…
…Ha… ha… ha….. ha…… ha… .. .
So back to the story. I load into the car of our mission host who showed up in Belgrade to drive us to our next site in Romania. He’s an incredible man, as I remarked in my last post (I’ll go more in depth about him and his ministry in my next post).
Among the many things on our trek to our next site he mentions he will need/will be going on in this next month is that he will need someone from the squad to be his PA (Personal Assistant), adding that he’ll bring it up to our squad leaders for them to decide who would best fill this role.
We stop for lunch and while we’re waiting my one squad leader approaches me and asks if we can talk for a second off to the side.
I uh.. think you get the idea of what was said in that conversation, haha.
All in all, I consider myself very blessed and am truly thankful to have been appointed to this position this month, and it has done me a lot of good being put in such a position. I’ve learned a great deal from it!
I just couldn’t help but to sit there, though, and think to myself, “Man God, You do like a good laugh every now and then, don’t you?” To have a prayer answered THAT directly, that immediately, is, in my eyes, nothing short of humorous, and I feel I got yet another glimpse at a side of God we often overlook: His sense of humor! In fact, every now and then, especially when reading in Genesis, my thoughts often dwell on when God promised Sarah and Abraham a son, and Sarah laughed at the prospect. God calls her out on it, and as it says, “Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, ‘I did not laugh.’ But God said, ‘Yes, you did laugh!‘” (Genesis 18:15). I mean, many of us would be apt to believe God would become indignant at Sarah’s ridicule (that’s just the image we’ve allowed to be painted in our minds by the enemy; that God is vicious, unkind, and unfair. God is a Father who is firm on boundaries, but is SO, SO much beyond that). But in the end, I can almost hear straight from the text God saying, in the modern vernacular, “Haha, are you for real right now, Sarah? You TOTALLY just laughed!”. There are other instances throughout scripture as well where God is also a little playful in how He words things.
***
All that aside, He is an incredible God who wants to talk to you and hears your prayers! Just don’t be surprised if His answer is a little… amusing, from time to time. 😀
As for my progress on personal discipline this month, I’ll admit, things haven’t always gone the smoothest and my time spent with God, while somewhat more solidified, is still searching for some more consistency/higher frequency. God created the opportunity to become better disciplined this month, and I’ll admit, while the opportunity has been there and the effort has been given, the results haven’t been what was expected.
In the past that would have crushed me at the realization.
But you know what?
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I’m going to stumble and I’m going to fall short and it’s NOT going to be a one-time deal either. Yet, in spite of that, in the words of Paul, I press on!
Fruit takes time to ripen, after all. I won’t be deterred because the harvest isn’t ready mid-season. That’s foolish. No, I will see it through to fruition, through the storms and setbacks that accompany the path till harvest at last is here! And I can’t wait to harvest the fruits of that particular crop, because I know God and I both are going to relish in the bounty and beauty of it, and the crops that follow will be multiplied greatly because of it!
The word spoken over my squad by my mentor at training camp was “multiply”.
Welp, add this to the stack of things that have been and are going to be multiplied!
